Day 61 - Port-aux-basques to Corner Brooke

Port-aux-basques (NFLD) to Corner Brook
230 km, mainly overcast, drizzle/rain for 2-3 hours, sunny for 2 hours
Winds – up to (maybe more) 30 km/h, with gusts, mainly cross-wind with some head and tail

De pebble is on de rock.

Welcome to the finals, post-game one interview:

- Good show today, can you give me some of your insights of the past 10 hours?

- Yeah, sure. We were expecting the Rock to throw a bunch of things at us right off the bat. Coming onto their territory, we knew this wasn't going to be a cake walk. They knew we took the long road to get here, and having to travel overnight, they had a pretty good idea we'd be tired. They threw some nice tough winds right from the get-go, adding rain, then the hills. We knew it was going to be tough from the start. But, we stuck to the game plan, we were patient, and just put in our time. After a pep-talk mid-way through, and some help from a nice coconut cream pie, the Rock started to show signs of fatigue. The winds calmed down, but the hills just kept up the assaults, coming one after the other. We have to give it to them, they played hard. But in the end, we came out on top.

- I noticed you didn't use the granny today, is there any reason for that?

- It was a last-minute decision. It was used lots in the past few weeks, so we thought we'd try to get through these series without it. We'll see what happens in the next few days.

- You are the heavily favoured side to come out on top in this series. Today, you basically did a quarter of the Rock. Do you plan on using the same tactics as you did in Northern Ontario and try to go for a sweep here?

- No, definitely not. There will be some longer matches, but you never know what will be thrown at you. Never underestimate things, never take things for granted, and never use the word never. We're pretty sure this series wont end in 4 days, we'd be pretty surprised if that happened.

- Any last words for your viewers?

- Yeah. I'd like to say hi to my mom and dad, and to all my friends and family back home, and all over the place, who have supported me from day 1.

- Thank you.

- No problem Elliot, anytime.

- Back to the studio with Ron and Don.

(Ron) – Thanks Elliot, just talking to.. (interrupted)
(Don) – Good ol' hard-workin' Canadian boy, good kid, eh? He's definitely ain't a Sweede. Are you sure he's French?
(Ron) – Yes, but not from Quebec. Northern Ontario boy.
(Don) – Well, he's still a good Canadian kid.

I hope that was different and entertaining. Throw in the accents in there to make things a bit more fun. I had fun thinking of it during the ride.

Alright. The rest of the details.

Ferry – left late (apparently, as usual). I put in my earplugs, my toque over my eyes, and just slept on the floor between chairs. We docked around 8 am or so. Still in my casuals (i.e. jeans, sandals, t-shirt and coat), I biked into town to have breakfast at Timmy's. Afterwards, I went to the Information Centre and got a bunch of information (and a new free map of NFLD). The ride started maybe around 10:30.

Nice tail wind getting out of town (for 1-2 km), until the road turned, and it would then be mainly crosswinds (alternating a bit of head and tail winds with the crosswinds). It felt a bit cool, so the knee warmers and arm warmers came out, plus the coat. Arm warmers didn't last too long, but the coat lasted for the first 5 hours.

The road is nice – new pavement, nice shoulder (2-3 feet). At the 100 k mark, the shoulder is reduced due to the “wake-up” strip (I forgot what it is called). With the bike, it was fine, but if I had a trailer, it would be annoying. Most of the signs, and painted on the road itself, is written TCH (Trans-Canada Highway). Dyslexic being me often, I see “THC”, which is not the same thing. I find it amusing whenever I see it.

The scenery is nice getting out of Port-aux-basques (the first 10-15 km), after that, it's pretty barren. There's nothing – no houses, businesses, lakes (rare), mountain ranges, or shore lines. I can see why people would want to skip this section and just take the long ferry across. But, no regrets on my end. The terrain is some long straight-aways in between long up and down hills. Not killer hills, but enough to make you work a bit. Granny not necessary. Going downhill, you can only hit a max of 60, so they are not too big. There was a service station and restaurant at the 100 k mark, but nothing before that. The second exit off of the highway came at km 150. The third was at the 215 km mark. Besides that, not much in between.

Corner Brook seems nice. Did some grocery shopping, then headed out of town (East) to a campground. I didn't try to get free accommodation anywhere. There are some nice little mountains in this corner.

The big mental battle I had today was if I was going to do a detour and visit Gros Morne National Park. I didn't plan it before, but in the past few weeks, I thought I'd make a detour and spend a rest day there. But, doing some reading, and talking to others, I would need a good week (up to a month) to do stuff there. Going there for a day would only permit me to do a little easy hike, not the beautiful hike to the fjord as I wanted. That one is a 3 day hike (advanced). The spot is a UNESCO World Heritage site. So, final decision: bypass the park, and come back for a longer time with someone/group. Anybody up for a cool time here?

So, slowly knocking down the days.

Ciao,

p
(uploaded from Grand Falls-Windsor, lunch, on humpday. another upload tonight at suppertime)